Shing02 just sent me this hilarious voice over of Michael Jackson's Beat It video of an insomniac man with an Osaka accent counting sheep and stressing out because he can't sleep before his piano recital. Wow. Question: is this only... Continue reading

In 2009 I had the great pleasure of interviewing and becoming friends with Toastie, a lovely lady who grew up in Australia and now performs all over the world as the oh-so-wonderfully-kooky Toast Girl. Here is a gorgeous video of... Continue reading

Every Japanese kid at some point in their lives has to do radio calisthenics exercises in the morning. Even though I didn't go to a Japanese school, I stumbled upon this strange ritual at a local swimming school that my... Continue reading

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting and having a long sun-soaked breakfast with rapper Shing02, who grew up all over the world -- Berkeley, Tanzania, Japan -- and now lives in LA. He's super famous for tracks he... Continue reading

In 2002, Hiroshi Sugimoto decorated Go'o Shrine on Naoshima with an optical glass staircase that leads to a subterranean stone chamber. It's now a permanent part of the Art House Project, an amazing art project on Naoshima that walks you... Continue reading

We Are All Radioactive - Chapter 7: Departure from Lisa Katayama on Vimeo. Just released the final chapter of my documentary, WE ARE ALL RADIOACTIVE. I hope you enjoyed it! If you missed previous episodes, you can watch all of... Continue reading

I wrote an article about Olympic gymnast Kohei Uchimura in last weekend's New York Times Magazine. You can read it here. (There's also a video story to go with it!) It's a fun piece with quotes from NBC commentators, Olympic... Continue reading

I'm excited and honored that Kenta Koga invited me to teach a course at Gakko Project, a cool new initiative founded by the Yale undergrad to redefine cross-border education between Japan and the US. We're going to be on Nao... Continue reading

Keiichi Tanaami's colorful depictions of psychedelic Astro Boy and evil POpEye are fun, but much more meaningful when you understand that he's a 76 year old active artist who was the first art director of Playboy Magazine four decades ago.... Continue reading

I love this TV commercial made by the Tokyo-based creative agency PARTY for Sony's make.believe campaign. It was shot with over 70 performers using 200 Sony devices, and it was all taken in one continuous shot. "SCREEN STORY" is a... Continue reading

We Are All Radioactive - Chapter 5: Measurements from Lisa Katayama on Vimeo. In Chapter 5, a team of hackers in Tokyo and Boston take radiation monitoring into their own hands, mapping the measurement levels across the entire country of... Continue reading

Episode 4 of We Are All Radioactive is live!! And it's super important: in this longer (9 minute) special episode, we go deeper with the characters we've gotten to know from Motoyoshi, AND we also meet nuclear experts from the... Continue reading

Since the 1990s, photographer Ahn Sehong has spent a lot of his time and attention shooting images of comfort women &mdash Korean women forced into sexual slavery in Japan during World War II who now live in China. He was... Continue reading

Several months ago, I blogged about my high school friend Hiro Fujita, who is living with ALS in Japan. Next Wednesday, he's going to be giving a public talk at McCann Erickson Japan &mdash the ad agency he works at... Continue reading

Ashima Shiraishi is a 4-foot-5 Japanese-American 11-year old girl who can kick anyone's ass rock climbing. She grew up climbing boulders in Central Park when she was 6 - her parents came to the US from Japan in 1978 -... Continue reading

At the fantabulous wedding of a childhood friend last night, the topic at one point turned to a vintage Japanese commercial about a 300+ year old seaweed + tea manufacturer called Yamamotoyama. Do any of you remember this commercial? It's... Continue reading

You guys -- take a moment today to think about all Asian and Pacific Islanders living with or who have died of HIV/AIDS. In addition to the physical effects of the disease, our communities deal with a lot of stigma,... Continue reading